The Eye-Opener

Thompson Faces Pressure to Bow Out
New York City's Democratic power brokers moved quickly after Tuesday's primary to pressure second-place finisher Bill Thompson to avoid a runoff with first-place finisher Bill de Blasio. “I don’t think th

The Daily News recently highlighted a $100,000 donation to Gov. Andrew Cuomo by Extell Development that appears to have been made the same day as a piece of legisaltion that granted the company tax breaks was passed in the Assembly. The tax breaks applied to the One57 building at 157 W. Fifth St., and others.

The bill had been scheduled for a vote in June 2012. Cuomo's representatives have denied any connection between Cuomo's approval of the bill and the donations but Sen. Ruben Diaz sees things differently.

He used his newsletter to imagine what would happen if he was caught up in similar controversy.

My dear reader, can you imagine if I did that kind of thing? Can youimagine if I, Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr., received $100,000 from any developer right before I threw my support for a piece of legislation that benefited that developer?

Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t think there would be full-scalelocal, state, and federal investigations claiming that I had accepted abribe in exchange for a political favor? Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t think that every single editorial board would be condemning me as corrupt? I can only imagine the torch and pitchfork crowds descending on my office.

A new Quinnipiac poll finds Bill de Blasio leading the pack of mayoral candidates in the Democratic primary, with 30 percent of likely voters supporting him. Christine Quinn dropped to second with 24 percent. The poll also found him winning in a runoff election against Quinn, which is called if no candidate wins over 40 percent of the vote. De Blasio began advertising on television last week, but his popularity may be due to his stance on stop-and-frisk. He's also the only candidate to support a tax increase on the wealthy. Despite the poll, it was Quinn who took the most attacks in the mayoral debate last night. After all, a third of those polled said they may change their minds.

The New York Police Department’s practice of stop-and-frisk violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, a judge ruled yesterday in a decision that included a call for a court-assigned independent monitor to oversee several reforms.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose administration has aggressively defended the practice as necessary to keep crime at historic lows, called the decision “very dangerous.”

"We believe we have done exactly what the courts allow and what the Constitution allows us to do,” he said.

He promised to appeal the decision — but the legal fight will likely outlast his stewardship of the city and will be left to his successor. Democratic candidates for mayor largely said they would abide by the court’s decision. Republican candidates called on the Bloomberg administration to fight it.

In her decision, federal judge Shira Scheindlin found that the city’s stop-and-frisk relied on “indirect racial profiling” by targeting minority communities and that officers stopped “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.” She said the practice violated the Fourth Amendment, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Mayoral candidates Christine Quinn and Anthony Weiner are winning the money race against their opponents in the crowded field for the Democratic nomination. With about a month to go before the Sept. 10 primary, new numbers filed with the city's Campaign Finance Board show the financial strength of candidates for citywide office. Quinn has $8.6 million; Weiner has $6.2 million. Weiner saw his fundraising lag following revelations that the married former congressman's habit of lewd online exchanges with women continued even after he had resigned from Congress for the same behavior.

In the comptroller's race, filings with the city show that ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer spent over $2.5 million -- including over $270,000 on petitioning to get on the ballot -- since announcing his bid for the seat in July. He put $3.7 million of his own funds into the race. His opponent in the Democratic primary, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, has $4.6 million on hand.

The U.S. Justice Department will probe whether the civil rights of a black teen were violated when he was shot and killed by a police officer last year. A Bronx grand jury declined to charge the cop with manslaughter on Wednesday. The boy's family was unable to obtain a special prosecutor for the case. The officer had previously been indicted by another jury. That decision was overturned by a judge who said the jury should take into account that another officer said the teen was armed. The cop gave an emotional and precise testimony this time, as opposed to the last one where he appeared nervous. The teen was shot in his own home and no gun was found, only a small bag of marijuana. The officer also still faces a disciplinary review by the Police Department.

DON'T MISS: THIS WEEK IN GOTHAM GAZETTE

Policy Dreamin' At Manhattan BP Debate: All of them think Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Midtown East rezoning plan is moving much too fast. All of them concede they are willing to revisit the City Charter to improve land use procedures. They all want to diversify their appointments. And they want to connect the limited powers of the office they are seeking to a wider breadth of pressing issues. By Chester Soria.

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